After Lushan Quake, a Debate Over Who’s Donating What

The strong earthquake that struck Sichuan on Saturday was one of the first major natural disasters in the age of widespread social media adoption in China.

Users of China’s popular microblogs might be expected to grumble about the government response to the quake, but thus far the reaction has been generally positive. Instead, many users of Sina Corp.’s microblog platform, Weibo, have focused their attention on comparing charitable donations from major organizations.

Reuters

A man cried as he burned an offering in front of the body of his relative in Lushan on Sunday. See more photos.

In particular, some users griped about the donations of local companies like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. Both companies originally said they had donated 5 million yuan to the quake effort. They also both worked to make use of their powerful social media functions to help people affected by the quake get in touch with loved ones, or report where help was needed.

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Nonetheless, some complained. One user, writing under the handle Wenye yyyyeah, said, “Alibaba donating 100 million yuan would not be too much.” Others criticized Tencent for their donation amount as well. Late Monday Tencent said on its official Tencent Foundation account that it upped the amount it donated to 20 million yuan (in Chinese). A Tencent spokesman didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Meanwhile foreign companies have come in largely for praise, as many were quick to promise large amounts of money to the relief efforts. On Monday Samsung Electronics Co. said in a letter from its China director that it would donate 60 million yuan. After more than a month of being the center of state-media campaign first criticizing its warranty policies and then pornography in its app store, Apple Inc. said it would donate 50 million yuan.

Meanwhile, Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., the world’s largest contract electronics producer and better known by its trade name Foxconn, said it would donate 50 million yuan over the weekend.

Five years ago, when an even deadlier quake hit Sichuan, a number of foreign companies were criticized for not donating enough, according to APCO Worldwide Senior Counselor James McGregor. Though Mr. McGregor said that donations from foreign companies was well-meant to help victims, he also pointed out that, “if you’re a foreign company in China these days, you’re an open target for both attacks form people on the Internet and also government entities and the government media, so I think the default is always to anticipate that you’ll have trouble and try to get ahead of it.”

Responding to the news of Apple’s donations, microblog users were mostly positive, with some taking the chance to hit out at China’s state-owned enterprises. One microblogger wrote: “We are waiting for the news of donations from PetroChina, Cnooc and the four state-owned banks.”

It’s not clear what the country’s state-owned enterprises might be doing behind the scenes to help.

For all the argument and criticism, many called for those online to concentrate on helping people, instead of fighting with each other. In that light one of the most persuasive voices came from popular Sina Weibo commentator Zuo Ye Ben, who wrote on Sunday:

“Suspend the mutual attacks, suspend the slander and abuse, even stop the debating and relax. Those starting rumors and faking contributions…will have people take them out one by one after the disaster is settled. You can’t run away from it. Weibo has a memory. Right now don’t waste energy and time on them, just take a screenshot, that will do. [Those arguing and starting rumors] are failing to live up this spring and creating another disaster, but you must not.”

The post was forwarded more than 20,000 times and received praise from many of the more than 3,000 comments it elicited.

Baidu

A person finder set up after the Lushan quake integrates information from a variety of Chinese Internet sites, including rivals Baidu and Qihoo 360.

China’s Internet companies gave more than money, harnessing their considerable social media power. On Weibo itself, many passed along addresses of those trapped under buildings and spread information about how to donate. Alibaba’s Alipay set up a donation platform to help the public donate to 12 charities and AliFinance offered to extend interest-free financing to customers in the region for the coming 12 months.

China’s largest search engine, Baidu Inc., set up a message board on its Reddit-like Tieba site with two columns, one for those searching for lost relatives, and another for those who wished to broadcast that they were safe to inform family members and friends. By 8 p.m. local time on Monday both columns had almost 6,000 posts. Below it another board flashed important messages and notifications from the authorities with more than 100,000 posts by Monday evening. Google Inc. also set up its own person finder.

Most notably, China’s largest Internet companies — which have spent years battling it out for precious users and advertising dollars, and contested easily a dozen lawsuits between them– joined together to create a single site that consolidated their various products to help locate victims and also connect families and friends disconnected by the disaster.

The companies cooperating include Alibaba, Baidu, Qihoo 360, Sina, Sohu and Tencent, as well as Google. The odd group provoked sarcastic responses of disbelief.

“I believe this is a miracle,” a user wrote under the handle Aisheiejueding.

Though the government is likely to continues to keep a tight leash on social media, the many positive uses of social media during the earthquake could potentially spur more government support for online engagement in charity, according to Mr. McGregor.

“All charity has been controlled by the government and people don’t trust it. If trusted online channels could be built, the new leadership is talking about the government not having power over everything, and maybe this is something where they’ll look at [the online response] as being a positive thing, as long as it’s well policed,” he said.

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